


Sweet Dreams

by renaissancepalette



Series: X-Men Modern-day AU (with powers) [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Children, Daughters, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen, One Big Happy Family, Short & Sweet, Slice of Life, estranged uncle Victor is mentioned, idk what else to tag, this may lead to more with exploring their relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-27 22:43:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19799263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissancepalette/pseuds/renaissancepalette
Summary: A short and sweet story about how Laura can't sleep and she goes to wake her dad, Logan, up to suffer the drastic ordeal of late night tv with her.





	Sweet Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> **I have been on a writing low for a long time, much longer than I have been before and longer than I would like. So I wrote this to knock out a pic on my list and to try and get back into writing again.**  
> 
> 
> **And I knew some wanted more Dad Logan & Laura, so I hope this helps a little bit**

Logan sleeps soundly for the first time in what feels like months, falling unconscious before his head hits the pillow, before his chest touches the sheets over his mattress, before he'd removed his arms from six-years-old secondhand suit jacket. It has seen better days; Logan has had has worse.

And then it's seven hours later that he's woken up _—_ half conscious and not at all graceful, snorting awake with a faint jolt. His facial hair stands out awkwardly—the section that had been laid on is pressed flat. Dazed, Logan's sitting up before his sight clearly focuses. The hallway light is on, as is his bedside lamp. The unexpected light causes him to shield his eyes, to groan, to bare his teeth and finally struggle to fully awake. He ultimately fails, far too exhausted to fully pull himself from sleep.

Laura is standing at his bedside between his vision and the lights, wrapped in the blue cotton-linen blanket she fell asleep in earlier while watching YouTube-uploaded Vine videos. She prods a finger at the corner of her father's eyebrow, continuing the action that stirred him awake.

"Quit, hey..." Although his voice is groggy, Logan is just as grumpy as always. His eyes flutter but don't open. "What's it you want, huh...?"

She doesn't answer right way, only pokes his face again _—_ his eyebrow, runs the pad of her forefinger over the healed scar near his temple, glides down to his nose, pulls the corner of his mouth upwards, pinches his cheek, draws her finger away at a drop of drool collecting at the corner of his open mouth. Seeing this, she chuckles, wishing she had a camera. However, her laughter has stirred him awake once again.

"Wassat?" comes out heavily slurred.

Again, Laura laughs. Scratches at his mustache with a fingernail, trying to tickle his face.

" _Hey_ ," he starts, but drifts off, it becoming an empty threat.

"Hey," she mimics in a deepened voice, mocking.

Now, the drool has become a line to the sheets beneath him. His head would have been on the pillow had he moved up a little higher before falling asleep.

"Ew."

Logan begins to snore.

His daughter pinches his cheek again, making his snoring stop. Now having enough playing with him, she purposely loudly repeats, " _hey_."

Logan's eyes flutter open again with a limp, "huh?"

"Get up." Her fingers still gently pinching his cheek pull harder.

"What time is it?" He sounds drunk _—_ heavily, on sleep.

"Get up," she repeats, louder.

" _Why?_ " He sounds like he's about to whine, or scold, or growl.

In answer, she begins pushing him across his small mattress _—_ she's planning on crawling into bed with him, but he stops her.

"What are you doing?"

And she pauses, one knee already on the bed.

Logan sits up fully and rubs his eyes, yawning. Laura's nose wrinkles at his bad breath, being too close in the line of fire.

Again, he asks, "what time's it?"

"Near 4:13."

"In the _morning?_ " He's shocked, looking at her as such, and is definitely more awake now.

Laura nods in answer and her father gives a loud sound that's somewhere between a sigh and a groan, running hands down his face and trying to rid the last of sleep from his mind.

"Alright," he gives in. "What's up."

"I couldn't sleep."

"Well, why not?"

She doesn't answer.

"Another bad dream?"

Laura hugs the blanket tighter, it bundled together for easier carrying. She glances to the floor and still doesn't respond.

Logan softly sighs, readjusts his position to make room for her to crawl back up into his bed. "You wanna sleep here?"

But Laura doesn't move and keeps hugging her bundled blanket like a plush toy and staring at the floor.

"Don't wanna sleep?" Logan asks.

She shakes her head.

And he sighs from the effort as he rolls out of bed and stands, knees and joints popping. He rolls his neck and there's a faint sound of metal slightly rubbing together. "Okay. Alright." He walks around to side of the bed where she's standing. "What'd you want?" He places a hand on her shoulder.

Laura hugs her bundled blanket and presses her mouth into it, muffling her response.

Logan doesn't catch it and asks her to repeat _—_ the years of playing both caretaker and role model has helped smooth out some of his roughened edges. Patience being one of them.

So when Laura looks up to him, and he knows she's silently requesting a slice of the Rice Krispie treats she was denied earlier, Logan doesn't become as gruff or grating as he would have been before. He doesn't growl, or roll his eyes, or turn his back and climb back in bed and ignore her for the rest of the night. Well, he _does_ roll his eyes, but he also lightly shakes his head, amused, and gives in to her request and ruffles the top of her hair.

Earlier that day, she had returned home with dirt shaking from her hair and fallen autumn leaves clinging to her twin braided pigtails. She had been ordered to clean herself thoroughly, per routine, but obviously she hadn't. There's a box of old-fashioned rings and earrings found or bought from yard sales, of lizard skeletons, bird bones and feathers, shed snake skins, and pretty gemstones she finds while scavenging outside. She has a collection of printed photos she keeps between the pages of an old outdated textbook.

Pulling his hand away, he wrinkles his nose lightly. "You didn't wash your hair, did you?"

Laura's expression changes from begging puppy-dog eyes to _guilty_. She hadn't, fearing how she always gets shampoo in or near her eyes. She in fact hadn't.

* * *

Light rain patters on the window panes. It's heard in the background of the television set on low volume, and heard pounding the roof when Laura stops chewing.

In the living room, Laura's leaned into the curve of Logan's side, a large ceramic plate holding the three Rice Krispie treats on her lap. She chews loudly, uncouth. It still doesn't awake Logan from his nodding back off to sleep beside her.

“So,” her father had started minutes ago, first kicking his feet up on the footrest and dropping a large arm around the back of the couch. “What’s been keeping you up, hm?”

“I couldn’t fall asleep,” she repeats, as if it were that simple.

“Well we’ve already established that. Now the question is _why_.”

Laura fidgets with the plate of Krispies treats instead of responding.

Logan sighs. “We’ve talked about this. How am I supposed to help if you don’t let me know when something’s wrong?”

Beside him on the couch, she shrugs.

Logan frowns. “Do you _want_ me to help?”

She hesitates, and eventually shrugs again.

That had been nearly thirty minutes ago. Now, Logan is fast asleep at Laura’s side.

On the television screen, a cartoon about a redhead, robot, and one-eyed woman play a rerun episode. This episode is about finding a lucky multi-leafed clover.

Laura glances at her father _—_ his head tipped-back across the back of the sofa couch, mouth closed but he's loudly breathing in his sleep. He'd knocked out as soon as he'd sat down and got comfortable, which was just after serving her plate of late night treats. She's got her feet outstretched on the footrest; one of Logan's rest beside hers, the other is on the floor. Looking at Logan's foot beside hers, she thinks he could really benefit from a pedicure. On the television, one of the main characters _—_ the redhead _—_ expresses regret for his negative assumptions about his family whom he presumed to have lost his extremely lucky clover.

In her treasure box, Laura has a few stones she considers lucky. She's even scolded her father when he misplaced them, once _—_ it had been after she poured them in his pocket before departing for school, after he shared his needing luck for the workday. (It had been his thinning patience but also needing to put on a friendly face to earn the much needed promotion.) Afterwards, Logan learned to take more notice when his pockets have holes in them.

In the dark, Laura devours two of her three snack treats before the commercial break.

The rain pelts with more force. Thunder rumbles in the distance. A memory of the recent week flashes in her mind and she glances around the room, glances up at her father as a just-in-case. She eats her last treat slower.

This night isn't the first they have stayed up late for her sake, and is actually the third week in a row and having done this on five separate occasions.

The white undershirt Logan wears is stretched from use and stained with un-bleachable mystery spots _—_ some of them red foods and ink, Laura thinks. The others are darker, like long-dried blood. Their origin isn't one she's never entertained him and asked. His pajama pants are a pair purchased at a thrift store for Christmas last year.

Laura's eyes train on the television. Absentmindedly swipes her tongue across the reddened scar slits on her knuckles, as if still feeling blood oozing, before taking another bite of her snack.

Beside her, Logan snorts, she misses the sassy comeback said by the cartoon robot, and her father readjusts his posture while in his sleep. Laura shifts to get comfortable again, curling into his side; pulls the hood of her onesie further forward and considers whether it's worth ruining her comfort to steal two more Rice Krispie treats as she licks her fingertips and the plate's crumbs.

She watches television and tries not to think about her nightmare, an exaggeration of an encounter two weeks ago. She thinks about the cartoon trio on screen and the lady Logan has been seeing, the same who gifted Laura her onesie. She thinks about her friends she's to see soon; she thinks about the large, tall man she had a stare-down with while waiting outside for the school for her teacher who was to drive her home that day _—_ the man who stood in the pouring rain, who wore leather and a snarl, who made Laura's claws slide out on blind instinct and in time with his which his own that came from his fingernails instead. That man had left, disappearing down the street right before Laura's teacher returned from inside the school building.

Laura thinks about telling her father about the long-fingernail man who made the hair rise on the back of her neck.

**Author's Note:**

> I love Laura and the idea of her watching Futurama in a cozy onesie
> 
> **I'm open to add more to this story/series if that is what you would like.**


End file.
